Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart comments to Rock, Paper, Shotgun on the possibilities of revisiting the Fallout series after the studio created the well-received Fallout New Vegas. He expresses enthusiasm for returning to the property the former Black Isle developers helped originate, though also notes that the current "disruption of the industry" caused by the life-support phase of the console cycle is an obstacle to making deals with publishers, in spite of their friendly relationship with Fallout owner Bethesda Softworks. Caution aside, he discusses how it would make sense for them to create another west coast version of the Fallout setting, since they are a west coast studio. RPS caps this by paraphrasing a response from Bethesda's Todd Howard, who expresses cautious enthusiasm for another spin of the New Vegas wheel. They promise to publish their complete interview with Urquhart "very, very soon." Thanks nin.

descender wrote on Feb 12, 2013, 16:31:You are having a stuttering problem because FO3/NV were not released with exe files that can actually use most of your hardware. Go run them with the 4GB LAA exe files that Skyrim shipped with and your stuttering will likely disappear.

Skyrim had no such support when it "shipped" (i.e. released on Steam). Bethesda only added it (kicking and screaming?) in a title update after a third-party mod made the functionality available.

The next one should be Fallout: Detroit. It'll save money and development time, since they won't have to storyboard and do concept art... present day pictures will work fine as assets for a post-apocalyptic game!

That still doesn't improve: # of objects in the world, density of objects, mesh detail, shader quality, shadows.

First of all, the limiting settings for the density of objects and shadows are... in the INI files... so are the settings for which of the games texture detail levels you will be using, mipmap levels... not all of these settings can be fully maxed out by using the sliders int he game so... you are just wrong.

Adding objects meshes and the like to the world has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation. I can only say "DUH", of course you can't magically add objects to the world.

If you think any of these things were what I was talking about... then something tells me this conversation was wasted on you.

descender wrote on Feb 12, 2013, 17:21:You absolutely can tweak the graphics for better draw distance, more color/saturation, higher resolution textures, less detail fade... so don't tell me "you can't" when the rest of the world around you can and does.

You absolutely can tweak the graphics for better draw distance, more color/saturation, higher resolution textures, less detail fade... so don't tell me "you can't" when the rest of the world around you can and does.

if anything, the lighting in Skyrim is considerably WORSE than any of the previous games. So much bloom, so much contrast... it really looks quite horrible in some areas. Basically any dark area with a light.

I don't see it stutter at all with my NV ini files (which took hours to get right) so... sounds like a personal problem.

descender wrote on Feb 12, 2013, 16:31:Can I sell you a boat that isn't leaking "quite so much"?

As I said, you can tweak FO3/NV to look almost exactly like Skyrim.

You are having a stuttering problem because FO3/NV were not released with exe files that can actually use most of your hardware. Go run them with the 4GB LAA exe files that Skyrim shipped with and your stuttering will likely disappear.

- No you can't- I already have

I'm not sure what INI tweaks can add more objects to the game's barren landscapes and empty interiors (EDIT: or more detailed meshes, or better shaders, or...). I do remember there was a particular bookshelf in a particular corner of a particular room in FNV that had a lot more objects than normal. It actually chugged. On my i5 2500k/6950 HD system.

Gamebryo would be fine if Bethesda invested a few hundred or few thousand hours of highly skilled developer time into it. Alas, it is now it's a nightmare to deal with. Real shame because it's so very moddable and the community is used to working with it.

Fallout 3 nor New Vegas had the creature levelling system where it kept everything around your level.

Do this, start a new game in New Vegas. Now travel the road north towards New Vegas. Have fun trying to get by the Deathclaws.

As long as you don't get yourself surrounded (read: play wrong), this is fairly easy to do.

None of this changes the fact that once you are 2 hours into the game, you can now roam freely without even worrying about the deathclaws... and then the difficulty and challenge never ramps up. Am I the only one that finally went to finish the storyline and one shot the last guy in the Legion camp with a melee weapon?

There are no real "bosses" to speak of (even the default dragons in skyrim were a fairly lame attempt at them), and only the most basic of puzzles.

It almost ALWAYS comes down to needing to excessively mod these games to make them playable. There is a mod for Skyrim called Deadly Dragons, and another called Occupy Skyrim, go install them and you can see a glimpse of what kind of changes I would be hoping for.

Ehh, no offense, but you're either exaggerating/remembering incorrectly, lying, or unaware of difficulty levels higher than the easiest. Or maybe using mods that make you or your weapons more powerful than vanilla.

Fallout 3 nor New Vegas had the creature levelling system where it kept everything around your level.

Do this, start a new game in New Vegas. Now travel the road north towards New Vegas. Have fun trying to get by the Deathclaws.

That's just flat out not true. NV introduced minimum/maximum levels for NPC's. The problem is you are talking about one small area that you can't go in, on a HUGE map to explore. At the beginning of the game, 90% of the map should be super dangerous and kill you, not 5%. As long as you don't get yourself surrounded (read: play wrong), this is fairly easy to do anyway.

None of this changes the fact that once you are 2 hours into the game, you can now roam freely without even worrying about the deathclaws... and then the difficulty and challenge never ramps up. Am I the only one that finally went to finish the storyline and one shot the last guy in the Legion camp with a melee weapon?

There are no real "bosses" to speak of (even the default dragons in skyrim were a fairly lame attempt at them), and only the most basic of puzzles.

It almost ALWAYS comes down to needing to excessively mod these games to make them playable. There is a mod for Skyrim called Deadly Dragons, and another called Occupy Skyrim, go install them and you can see a glimpse of what kind of changes I would be hoping for.

You are having a stuttering problem because FO3/NV were not released with exe files that can actually use most of your hardware. Go run them with the 4GB LAA exe files that Skyrim shipped with and your stuttering will likely disappear.

Other than the deathclaw pit I can't think of too many other dangerous areas in NV... and the the model animations were better I bet they wouldn't be as hard to kill in the first place

The civil war stuff in Skyrim was a step in the right direction in terms of content and "exciting battles to be had", the extreme emptyness of the world in NV and FO3 didn't work to immerse, it only made things more absurd I thought. Big political machinations involving... 12 people.

descender wrote on Feb 12, 2013, 15:34:There is not a huge difference between the Skyrim engine and what they used for the Fallout games... just tweaks and updates. You can achieve similar results with their older games by simply editing the ini files.

Playing New Vegas right now. It runs noticeably worse than Skyrim (with constant stuttering as it loads in new areas/objects) despite looking much worse and having much more barren environments. New Vegas and Fallout 3 were also far less stable for me than Skyrim is; I can count the number of Skyrim crashes I've encountered on one hand, while New Vegas usually crashes at least once every time I play it.

descender wrote on Feb 12, 2013, 15:34:That doesn't even touch on my biggest gripe (for every game in this vein since oblivion), which is their leveling/skills system. You can go everywhere and do everything in the game at level 5, without fear of where I am wandering... and the "challenge" never even remotely increases once in the next 100+ hours of gameplay... I just don't get it.

Fallout 3 nor New Vegas had the creature levelling system where it kept everything around your level.

Do this, start a new game in New Vegas. Now travel the road north towards New Vegas. Have fun trying to get by the Deathclaws.